Thu, 21 Feb 2019 03:35:05 +1100WeeblySat, 02 Feb 2019 02:51:54 GMThttp://www.recreatingthecountry.com.au/blog/revegetation-mimicking-nature Setting the sceneYou’ve decided to get your weekly dose of nature and maybe achieve your 10,000 steps as well. There’s a park you’ve heard about just five minutes drive away. After parking the car you walk in through the gate and …wow! ….it’s wonderful!There are huge gum trees, flowering wattles, beautiful bushy [...] ]]>Recommended reading on revegetation and sustainable landscape design.Recreating the Country - a blueprint for the design of sustainable landscapes>

Setting the scene

You’ve decided to get your weekly dose of nature and maybe achieve your 10,000 steps as well. There’s a park you’ve heard about just five minutes drive away. After parking the car you walk in through the gate and …wow! ….it’s wonderful!

There are huge gum trees, flowering wattles, beautiful bushy shrubs and an enticing meandering track. You stand there motionless in awe of the timeless beauty of the bush scene that you’ve stepped into, a scene that could have been a Frederick McCubbin painting.

Superb Blue Wrens twitter and fly in and out of the bushes, a Rufous Whistler calls from the canopy of the tall trees and a bluetongue lizard startles you as it scurries from a grassy tussock into a nearby hollow log.

You’re surprised to discover from a sign as you walk that this natural bushland was a bare paddock just ten years before.

To recreate a beautiful area of natural bush like this, all you need is a diverse mix of plants and a short time for different habitats to develop. Add some logs and rocks on the ground and a wetland for good measure and the scene is set.

After planting, the transition from paddock to woodland can be fast and dramatic.For example, eucalypts only need ten years to reach half their mature height and wattles only need five years as do most hardy native shrubs.

Australian native plants can literally transform a bare paddock in five years and wildlife start moving back. You’ve probably heard it said ‘build it and they will come’, well it’s equally true to say ‘plant it and they will come, in flocks’.

Mimicking nature is the key to recreating a biodiverse sustainable natural park. If we use nature as our guide, all the ingredients will be built in for wildlife to thrive.

Wildlife are essential for a sustainable biodiverse system because of the ecological services they provide like pollination, insect control and fertilisation. A well designed system will become self-perpetuating as plant/insect/animal interdependencies establish.

So how do we copy a complex natural system?

It’s easy if you just look at the big picture and don’t get bogged down in the fine and complex detail.

The big picture is made up of features that we can recognise and copy in our design. Once these features are in place, insects will return to feed on leaves, nectar and pollen, then will come the birds, small mammals and frogs that feed on the insects and nectar. The complex ecological relationships between plants and wildlife called ‘the web of life’ soon establishes.

Many of these features can be incorporated into small urban gardens and streetscapes

For instance many Melbourne inner suburbs support a lot of wildlife because there are private native gardens, avenues of native trees and indigenous plantings in parks and roadsides. The collective effect of these plantings supports a diverse array of birds and insects. The habitat and food supply provided by these urban reserves could be improved significantly by mimicking nature. For example planting vegetation layers of shrubs indigenous to the area near to mature trees would support a broader selection of small bird species that would help control insect pests damaging mature trees.

Large urban and rural locations, like the park in the introduction, can support diverse sustainable communities of birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians.

There are two critical pieces of the design puzzle that are needed before we begin to recreate a sustainable heathland, woodland or forest. If we want it to be ecologically sustainable and to attract a diversity of wildlife including the more discriminating threatened species, there is,

Shape – Birds also forage in an outwardly expanding oval pattern. The Hooded Robin for instance needs an oval shaped home-range equivalent to 5 Melbourne Cricket Grounds, a total of 10ha. It needs three times this area when breeding.

Farm plantations are typically 10 - 20 meters wide. They can only provide food and shelter for limited numbers of wildlife

Typical farm plantations aren't wide enough for wildlife.

You’re probably thinking that long narrow farm plantations are not ideal for foraging birds and you’re quite right. A significant number of birds will visit farm plantations but they won’t be able to make their home there because the habitat is too exposed.

This can be overcome by creating links with roadside reserves, wetlands, water-ways or remnants of native bush where there are hollows and sheltered nesting sites.

In a farm situation, 50 m wide corridors can be developed along waterways and adjacent to roadside reserves.

50 m wide perimeter plantings around a farm would provide exceptional shelter for stock and crops and form the basis for pest control on the farm by attracting a diversity of insect eating birds and micro-bats. Narrow plantations within the farm can then be used as links to dams, remnant patches and areas of forestry.

Income generating plants can be incorporated into wider plantations. I plan to write more on this topic next month.

A diversity of plant families is often overlooked in landscape design

Plant a diverse mix of local plants comprising at least 20 species from 10 genera and 7 families. These numbers reflect what is found in woodlands and dry forests and they provide a guide and a challenge to think differently about diversity.

For instance its not too difficult to put together a list for a plantation from well known plant groups like gums, paperbarks, tea-trees, and bottlebrush. Three/four different types from each of these plant groups would give you 12 - 16 different species. Sounds like a great plantation doesn't it, but its not very diverse because they are all from one family, the Myrtle family.

Focusing on having many more plant families in your mix is the best way to ensure that plantings are the most diverse that they can be. You probably already know many of the different plant families without being aware of it. See this link to 'Making a list of plants for revegetation' for more images of different plant families

See twelve families illustrated below to be amazed by their remarkable diversity.

In the human world, people from different families have distinctive physical characteristics.

Similarly plants from different families are also very different. This can be seen in their distinctive flowers, bark, leaves and fruit and this adds immeasurably to the diversity of the natural bush and the variety of food and habitat that is found there.

Small gardens can incorporate one or two small gums and small wattle species to add significantly to the food that is available to wildlife.

In rural areas designers of small gardens will need to consider the flammability and therefore the fire risk of some native plants. For example plants from the Myrtle family like eucalypts have combustible aromatic oils in their leaves. Suitable low fire risk placement should be considered for these plants. For more ideas on this theme you could read my blogs;

From Recreating the Country - A blueprint for the design of sustainable landscapes by Stephen Murphy

Create layers of vegetation.Ecologists have recognised three layers in heathlands and five vegetation layers in a healthy woodlands and dry forests.

Imagine a silhouette of your favourite woodland scene;

At the top of the silhouette are likely to be tall gums – that’s the top or canopylayer.

As your eye scans down you’ll see the medium size trees make another dark layer of thick vegetation – that’s the understorey layer often filled with tall wattles and sheoaks.

You will also notice low shrubby layers within 5m of the ground – that’s a third and fourth layer.

Another important layer just above ground level is created by logs and tussock grasses – that’s the ground layer.

In revegetation, creating layers is best done by planting clumps of plants of the same species.Planting in same species clumps is also favoured by landscape architects because it has more visual impact than scattered random plantings

Same species grouping of Snowy Mintbush, Prostanthera nivea next to groups of eucalypts creates two layers in the vegetation

Nature always groups (clumps) plants of the same species. This has many benefits that include better pollination and more viable seed. If you take a walk off track in a local reserve you will see this grouping/clumping pattern everywhere.

To mimic this pattern in a large plantation for example, same-species clumps can include these numbers of plants ;

5 – 10 tall eucalypts of the same species,

10 – 20 medium size trees of the same species,

20 – 50 shrubs of the same species,

50 – 100 tussock grasses of same species

The number of plants in a clump reflects the size of the plants and the size of the planting.

Large areas of 1ha - 10ha or more can include very large same-species clumps. Smaller plants like tussock grasses need much greater numbers to create a viable plant community for good pollination and to minimise weed invasion.

Trees like the taller eucalypts would have historically been scattered through a woodland at a density of 10 - 20 trees/ha. Scattered clumps of 5-10 eucalypt seedlings allows natural selection to decide which eucalypt becomes the long term survivor. This strategy is explained more fully here

Small gardens may only have five to ten plants in a clump because of the limits of space.

Grouping creates layers of vegetation which are like shelves in an outdoor pantry

Layers are like shelves in an outdoor pantry.

Same species clumping improves feeding efficiency because food bearing plants are no longer scattered through a plantation making them inconvenient and isolated.

They are conveniently grouped making them visible and attractive to more wildlife. It becomes like a huge natural pantry with foods of different types available on the different shelves (layers).

Wildlife are also shaded and sheltered from predators while feeding in layered vegetation.

Planting wide plantations for biodiversity alone is not enough to motivate the majority of landowners

Money, cash, dough from biodiversity is a very strong motivator

Farmers are running a business. If we want wider sustainable plantations on private land we need to design biodiversity that returns an income

When I travel about talking to Landcare groups, I ask;

who would plant a 50 meter wide plantation for biodiversity alone? - usually about 10% say they would.

Then I ask;

would it make a difference if you could earn a significant income from a 50 meter wide biodiversity planting?

- usually over 50% become interested.

Farmers want to look after their local environment and be part of community conservation initiatives but they also need to run viable businesses. Also research has shown that farmers who are making a comfortable income from their farm are far more likely to invest money in plantations.

A biodiversity planting with up to 20% plants for income/profit is still just as biodiverse and sustainable and it is has the support of a lot more landholders.

Mimicking nature in revegetation design is easy and only needs a few basic skills and a willingness to experiment. Include as many families as you can and plant in same species clumps, the smaller the plants the bigger the numbers in each clump. When its possible, create links and connections between vegetation areas so that wildlife can move around safely and provide their free ecological services.

Building income streams into biodiversity plantings in March

]]>Thu, 20 Dec 2018 19:45:51 GMThttp://www.recreatingthecountry.com.au/blog/wildflowers-at-christmasChristmas is a time to slow down and celebrate with the people that really matter in our lives. Its a time to share stories about the year past which may include our interests and our passions.Sweet Bursaria, Bursaria spinosa

Australian wildflowers have given me a lot of pleasure over the past three decades so I would like to share with you the indigenous plants of the Geelong area that are flowering in my garden this Christmas.

Take a few minutes to sit back, relax and enjoy the kaleidoscope of colour that is,Wildflowers at Christmas (click on the image to enlarge)

If you have pictures of your local wildflowers that are presently adding to the colour of your landscape, send them through and I'll post them here. Including name and provenance of the wildflowers would be a great help.

In February 2019 I plan to review the topic of revegetation - design, site preparation and plant species selection.

How do we maximise the benefits to wildlife from biodiversity plantings while returning a useful income to the land owner. Biodiversity and profit may be strange bedfellows but the synergy of the two has so many advantages.

]]>Fri, 23 Nov 2018 06:54:48 GMThttp://www.recreatingthecountry.com.au/blog/small-nurseries-have-played-an-important-role-in-restoring-our-rural-landscapesTreehome Nursery in Autumn 2009. The same view taken on November 2018 is shown at the end of this blog

"Where have all the nurseries gone? Long time passing"

In the first three decades of Landcare, small locally based nurseries were important cogs in the indigenous revegetation machinery that put millions of trees back on our rural landscapes. Their contribution to restoring biodiversity, reducing soil erosion and combating dryland salinity on farms was considerable.

Sadly in my neck of the woods most small nurseries have closed, leaving only the larger production nurseries, that have little or no local connection, to supply plants for Landcare projects.

Small nurseries were often run by one or two people and usually produced up to 150,000 plants in tubes. This was the magic number that provided a viable income for two adults sharing the management and production roles

During the thirty years that I was part of the family team that ran Treehome Nursery in Teesdale, Victoria, there were a number of other small nurseries providing similar services. Each of these small nurseries supported a rural landscapes radiating up to 50 km from the nursery premises. Each of these small nurseries had a detailed practical knowledge of their 50km radius patch which greatly enhanced the unique services that they each provided.

Lina collecting indigenous Blackwood seed

These unique practical services included.

A detailed local knowledge;

of remnant vegetation and where it was found;

of microclimates, soils and topography;

of seed collection sites (maintaining a local seed bank was also integral to this process).

For example, deep ripping was always recommended in the early years to aid the establishment of trees. Feedback from farmers planting on cracking clay soils made it clear that deep ripping caused problems in these soils. The soil cracked wider along rip lines exposing the roots of young trees. Because of this feedback we discouraged ripping in cracking clay soils.

Practical support for Landcare facilitators as well as Local, State and Federal Government field officers. These individuals would change every few years so the local knowledge provided by small nurseries became invaluable to them.

Monitoring planting sites to improve local knowledge of plant species performance. This often came as feedback from farmers rather than as a formalised process.

These specialist services could only be provided by locally based businesses interested in the people and the place where they lived and worked.

Our nursery only occupied 0.5ha and as a small business we were welcomed into the farming community.

When we arrived in Teesdale we were told that it would take over 25 years to become locals. Within three years of opening the nursery we were regularly invited into the cosy kitchens of farming families, a privilege that we valued highly because it made us feel welcome, accepted and valued.

Also ours was a family run nursery which was a perfect fit into the farming community who were also mostly family businesses. These close relationships were integral to tailoring the support and advice for farm revegetation projects. I always relied on the commitment and knowledge that each farmer had for their property. It became a team approach with information flowing both ways.

In the late 1980’s we were all learning together because the ‘science’ of revegetation was in its infancy. Only a handful of farmers were planting trees at that time and that was mostly for firewood.

Revegetating a stony barrier near Shelford required an appreciation of the plant species that are suited to the heavy cracking soils of the basalt plains

However there were some remarkable pioneer farmers that ignored the popularly held belief in the 1980’s that trees had no place on a farm because they competed with crops and pasture. These farmers have become legendary because they were fearless advocates for a different way of farming which enhances the local ecology.

I had the good fortune to work with a number of these remarkable innovative thinkers and they inspired me to think differently about trees on farms. This was another exciting benefit of being a small nursery with an embryonic philosophy in an evolving world of new ideas.

The establishing of our nursery and many other small nurseries coincided with the emergence of Landcare in Victoria. Through this great organisation I found another network of people committed to repairing a damaged rural environment. There was a general sense of optimism and the naïve belief that the problems of erosion, dry land salinity, wind exposure and loss of biodiversity could be quickly turned around by planting trees.

Thirty three years on we know trees are playing an important role in repairing Australia’s rural environment though the restoring biodiversity challenge is far more of a marathon than a sprint.

Running a small Landcare nursery it helps to have a commitment to improving the local environment as well as an openness to never stop learning. Every person who came into our nursery taught me something of value.

It also helps to have a patient almost meditative attitude to the sometimes tedious daily routine of planting thousands of small seedlings. This we overcame with a thankfully endless stream of talking books from the Geelong Library

Each species having a different leaf colour and shape giving the nursery benches the ambiance of a lush mosaic raised garden.

Yet the rewards for this patient dedication were huge, like the spectacular autumns when the nursery was full of healthy young plants. Each species having a different leaf colour and shape giving the nursery benches the ambiance of lush mosaic raised gardens.

The like minded people that we met every day, many of whom become friends, were our community as well as our information network. The benefits of being part of a network of genuine committed people are immeasurable.

We had hoped that Treehome Nursery would continue to support the local Landcare community for many years to come as it had under our stewardship for thirty years. Regrettably, the new owners closed its gates for the last time on November 15th 2018.

I hope there are other young families out there with the optimism and long term commitment to the environment needed to fill this vacuum

Sadly the haunting words of American songwriter Pete Seeger in his song ‘where have all the flowers gone’ could be speaking about the demise of small nurseries;

"Where have all the nurseries gone?Long time passingWhere have all the nurseries gone?Long time ago"

Treehome Nursery closed its gates for the last time on November 15th 2018

Gib is a an award winning author, journalist, editor, publisher and advocate for preserving indigenous cultural heritage. His view is that;

"the 60,000 year-old Indigenous heritage we have inherited makes Australian landscapes as much cultural as natural".

He is the author of The People of Budj Bim written in collaboration with the Gunditjmara people of south-west Victoria, which in 2010 was Overall Winner of the Victorian Community History Awards.Also, the author of The People of Gariwerd, the Grampians’ Aboriginal history, which has gone through three print runs.

He is currently writing and producing the 3rd in a series of booklets for the Yirralka Rangers, titledKeeping Country, on the bi-cultural approach adopted by this Indigenous land management group in north-east Arnhem Land.

As a publisher, he has edited many books, including Stephen Murphy’s Recreating the Country and Tanya Loo’s nature journal set in the Wombat Forest, Daylesford Nature Diary, which reintroduces a six season Indigenous calendar for the foothill forests.

In 2006, he wove the Indigenous heritage of the Grampians Ranges into the essays published in a high quality landscape format book with photographs by Alison Pouliot,Gariwerd: Reflecting on the Grampians.

We switch panels to store, as we unfurl solar sailsAnd lay the songline down.We sing with joy when we reach the reef and the fish shoal is found.

We spear the fish, sail the songline backTo the beach where a hot fire glowsWe sing to the fish of how our lives are twined as we pass damper to and fro.

The cats are gone, cane toads no moreThe valley’s soil is softThe shepherds herd their mobs of roos through glades of thigh high grassAnd everywhere the wetlands spread and wild birds wheel aloft.

We sing on the zeppelin as it orients for homeFollowing power plant ruins belowIt’s ten years now since the last coal was dug…It’s back to the future we go.

Gib Wettenhall 2014

Reimagining and reinventing Australian culture

Gib Wettenhall explaining the significance of 'Gwion Gwion' known as the Bradshaw Paintings. Photo Gib Wettenhall. Click image to find out more

Australia’s landscapes are as much cultural as natural. People were everywhere, affecting everything, across the length and breadth of the continent over an unimaginable timescale, recently confirmed at an archaeological dig on our northern frontline at some 60,000 years ago. That’s the conclusion of historian Billy Griffiths in his acclaimed new book on the history of Australian archaeology, Deep Time Dreaming.

This primal Indigenous spiritual power is still evident in the country’s remote places. I have recently rock hopped for two weeks along the Roe River and scaled the blood-red gorges of the Prince Regent National Park on the western edge of the Kimberley. At every one of the waterfalls punctuating our progress, rock art shelters crowded with ancestral beings and creation stories overlooked the dark, deep green of secret/sacred pools. On gorge tops, artificially-placed standing stones act as markers, sometimes leading to ceremonial grounds, where, if you are willing to pay attention, the ancient power of the land and its people remains palpable.

At every one of the waterfalls punctuating our progress, rock art shelters crowded with ancestral beings and creation stories overlooked the dark, deep green of secret/sacred pools. Photo Gib Wettenhall

The world is being undone before us

I agree with writer Richard Flanagan, who recently said at the Yolngu people’s Garma Festival, we are at a crossroads as a nation. “The world is being undone before us… Our bewilderment with the greater world we live in is buttressed by our determined ignorance of our own country.” If Australians do not reimagine and reinvent our culture, then we will be undone too. We must fill the silent spaces of the past and acknowledge a far older and richer culture than the Western civilisation brought to Australia by the British.

Where the Western tradition regards land as something that can be bought and sold, Indigenous people have a much more intimate, reciprocal relationship. As animists, Indigenous people right around the globe, regard themselves as the land’s custodians not its owners. Yuval Noah Harari describes in Sapiens how such custodianship brings with it responsibilities to care for and cherish their patch and everything that is part of it.

That rock at the top of the hill, the trees that clothe it, that flowing stream, the animals that drink there – all are living things with souls. Photo Gib Wettenhall

Animating the landscape with songlines

Each child is given a totem – a plant, animal or natural object – that links him or her to the natural world. Totems act as guides. They have to be shown respect and actively nurtured to ensure continued fecundity of plants and animals and a world that is healthy and alive.

Animating the landscape is done through ceremony. To the animist, everything has awareness and feelings. No distinction exists between humans and animals or even mountains and gullies, beaches or the sea. That rock at the top of the hill, the trees that clothe it, that flowing stream, the animals that drink there – all are living things with souls. Singing, dancing and painting act as the medium for linking people to the natural world and keeping it alive.

Every totem, every place, every insect, has a creation story attached to it. Strung together, the creation stories form songlines.

Each person who develops the abilities to sing, dance and paint the patterns of their songline gains a source of identity, power and a comprehensive map and archive of all that their landscape contains.

The wild honey bee songline might climax by pointing to a sacred site where honey spills out, emerging as a freshwater spring. The parrotfish songline tells you where they can be caught and how to cook them. In the dry hot season, two sisters who became stars sit far apart. In the cooler months, they can be seen together, sitting around one big fire.

A group of trekkers pausing to experience the ambiance of a sacred place in the Kimberley. Photo Gib Wettenhall

At the dawn of creationthere was the dreamingIn the Memory Code, author Lyn Kelly highlights how oral cultures discovered that the best way to avoid Chinese whispers and to pass on knowledge unerringly over generation after generation is by attaching vivid stories to specific features of place. Whether it’s via the uniquely distinctive menhirs in the circles at Stonehenge or the sinuous line of rocks depicting the Rainbow Serpent on a sacred Aboriginal performance space.

In Australia, the Indigenous peoples most sacred and profound beliefs centre on the Dreaming. At the dawn of creation, it was the ancestor beings – some human, some beast – who brought what was previously barren land to life. As they journeyed, the ancestor beings sang about their experiences and the creatures they encountered, giving out names and passing on knowledge, much of it essential to survival. At the end of their journeys across land and sea, the ancestor beings left aspects of themselves behind transformed into part of the landscape.

"We could learn from their 60,000 years of honing their land management skills and move to adopt animist aspects of their culture". Photo Gib Wettenhall

How about some 'black on white' for a change

So, Aboriginal stories and songlines are written on land and sea. As aide memoires, they are rooted in place, set in rhyming couplets or quatrain form, aligned to particular songs and dance movements, and to patterns painted in rock art shelters or on performers’ bodies. It’s a brilliant system for connecting people to place, as well as providing a map of how to live.

Over 20 years from 1932, T.G.H. Strehlow journeyed through Central Australia collecting 4,270 Aranda song verses. While he had immersed himself in the study of the founding legends of Western civilisation at European universities, he eventually concluded that the Aboriginal songlines represented a far more impressive poetic achievement. Moreover, when regularly performed, they held “a vital function in daily life.”

Clearly, we cannot appropriate Aboriginal songlines. We can, however, go further than simply acknowledging their culture. We could learn from their 60,000 years of honing their land management skills and move to adopt animist aspects of their culture, aiming to enrich the shallowness of the existing dominant Anglo-Australian culture.

A Yolngu elder once arrestingly remarked to me that all they ever heard from the “dominant culture” was “white on black.”

“What do you mean?” I responded.

“The politicians and most white people are always quick to tell us how we should change and improve ourselves. Don’t you think it’s time the dominant culture acknowledged their destructive footprint and turned in our direction for some black on white?”

A good friend was sitting and watching the waves roll in near Point Lonsdale while thinking about a difficult life decision. A decision that could lead to her giving up the job she loved. She was captivated by the beauty and the wild freedom of the waves crashing in on the shore when she felt a light touch on her hair. She said it felt as if a friend had patted her reassuringly.

She looked around but she was alone on this open stretch of beach. Just a few meters away a Nankeen Kestrel settled on an old fence post and looked back at her. Its puzzled gaze fixed and without blinking. The two shared this close encounter for several minutes before the Kestrel lifted effortlessly on the breeze and glided away.

A close encounter at one of life's crossroads can guide an important decision

If we think back through our lives most of us would be able to recall a close encounter with nature. Often these encounters are uplifting, exciting, beautiful and become meaningful moments when we connect profoundly with the natural world.

If a close encounter happens at one of life’s crossroads then it can play a part in an important decision and become a moment to look back on, to find strength and reassurance. These close encounters could be with an animal, a plant, a remarkable landform or a beautiful place and they can form the basis of personal totems.

These close encounters with nature have played an essential part in important life’s decisions of humans for thousands of years. Particularly people whose culture is linked to the natural world that they live in.

Animists believe that we are all connected by and an equal thread in the Sacred Web of Life

Animism

Animism is a belief system which values nature. It is part of early and present day religions of many forager societies and it is based on the belief that every animal, plant and place has a spirit. Like humans these entities have an awareness and feelings and can be communicated to using words, dance and ceremony. Animists believe that these entities are our equals and should be cared for and treated with the greatest of respect.

Yuval Noah Harari in his remarkable book ‘Sapiens’ a Brief History of Humankind describes animist culture. He gives the example of ‘an animist hunter addressing a herd of deer and asking one of them to sacrifice itself. If the hunt is successful the hunter may ask the dead animal to forgive him’. This is gesture shows recognition and deep respect for one life that has been taken to nourish another.

Animists were the first conservationists because they believed that the natural world wasn’t there just to provide for the needs of humans. They believed it should be protected and nurtured like any member of their family or tribal group. A failure to do so was wrong and could also result in momentous consequences

Mr McChokey was made from plastic straws thrown away by customers of McDonalds restaurants. Episode 2 of the ABC's recent 'War on Waste' with presenter Craig Reucassel

The momentous consequences are knocking at our door

We may scoff at the implication that failing to treat the natural world’s plants, animals and places with respect could lead to bad things happening. One animal shot for fun, one old tree with hollows cut down to make way for a wider road, one wetland drained to expand a cropping business, all may seem like small losses on a national scale.

However we are seeing today the effect of millions of small decisions over the past 12,000 years since the beginning of the Agricultural Revolution. We are seeing how the small decisions made by many over thousands of years have created a new Geological age, the Anthropocene. The age where many small decisions of one species is changing the climate of the planet.

“One plastic straw thrown away won’t hurt, said 8 billion people”.

The Wedge-tailed Eagle, the Sulphur-crested Cockatoo and the Kangaroo. A powerful image from Iluka art & design. Click on the image to see more

The First Australians

The first Australians have a deep connection with country, its animals, plants and places. They believe that the spirits of their Dreamtime ancestors, who walked the earth in a time before time, still dwell in sacred places on country as do the spirits of the 2,000 generations of people who lived before them. These ancestral spirits can be found in ancient trees or rock formations, in significant places or can be recognised in the behaviour of native animals.

I remember watching a Wathaurung man before a welcome to country ceremony following the flight of a screeching Sulphur-crested Cockatoo. He referred to the bird as his brother and felt comforted by its presence. Another Wathaurung elder on a hike along the Moorabool River, commented on the Wedge-tailed Eagle, ‘Bunjil’ that had flown along the river valley while we walked. He felt uplifted, safer and reassured by its visit.

Bunjil is the spiritual totem or moiety ancestor for many of the clans between Geelong and Ballarat. Some Wuthaurung clans have 'Waa' the Crow as their ancestral moiety.

Bill Gammage in his book ‘The Greatest Estate on Earth’ (p 132) records the observation of early settler Alexander Berry in NSW in 1836.‘The natives….believe in transmutation after death….they regarded that Porpoises, as having been the ancient chiefs of the neighbourhood, who when they died had changed into these animals; and who, they said, drove fish on shore for them, sometimes whales, when the people were very hungry’.

I have heard similar historic stories about the Wathaurung of the Geelong region fishing with the help of Dolphins on Corio Bay.

The first Australians have complex layers of totems deeply embedded in their culture. For them a totem can be a natural object, a plant or an animal that is inherited by members of a clan or family as their spiritual emblem.

Their totems define peoples' roles, responsibilities and relationships with each other and with creation. Totems could also be the descendants of the Dreamtime and are seen as heroes and spiritual guides.

The front cover of Rebecca Wilk's book. Click on the image to read her book

A child's story

Year four author Rebecca Wilks from Euchareena Public School (220 km NW of Sydney) wrote a beautiful illustrated book on totems in 2014. Her book was produced under the successful “Tools, Totems and Tucker” Enviro-Stories Program.

Her words encapsulate the essence of totemism;

What is a Totem?It is an animal or plant given to you at birth that your family has a special connection to

What does having a Totem mean?It means you are responsible for looking after that animal or plant and its habitat

How do you look after your totem?You never, ever kill your totem animal

How do you look after the habitat?Make sure you have enough trees for climbing, resting and hunting’

Magpies depicted in 'Morning Song'. Another vivid image from Iluka Art and Design.

Totem animals can be a source of inspiration

Rebecca is writing about an individual’s totem that is given at conception or at birth. A totem may reflect something significant the mother has seen, a natural event or a family tradition. One child was given the Echidna as a totem because her mother had to wait as an Echidna train crossed her path shortly before she gave birth.

Children then form a special and personal relationship with their totem, learn about how it lives and how to protect its habitat. They are likely to feel empowered by its strengths. For example:

Echidna – I’m fearless, careful and persistent

Magpie totem – I’mcurious, confident and intelligent

Swamp Wallaby – I’m swift, enduring and cautious

Dingo – I’m a leader, intelligent and faithful

Sugar Glider – I’m agile, social and an amazing climber

Blue-tongue Lizard – I’m cautious, resourceful and discreet

What qualities do you see in the Australian native animals that you admire?

Totemising a culture is a very effective way of protecting nature. It provides a powerful link between humans and wildlife. It helps us look behind our veils of ignorance to understand the needs of other creatures. It provides a voice for the voiceless and a vote for the defenseless.

I posed the bold question at the end of my July blog ‘The rewilding of Australian Culture’,What are your totems?click here to read

A wilding revolution

Become part of a wilding revolution that leads to every Australian choosing personal totems.

Every Australianchild could be given a plant and animal totem when they start at preschool.Every immigrant could be give a totem plant and animal when they are naturalised.

These would become their personal pathway into appreciating our amazing Australian wilderness.

Nankeen Kestrel in flight. Photo Gary Tate.

My good friend pondered about her meeting with the Nankeen Kestrel. She thought about its qualities of patience, unwavering concentration and clear vision and how it recognises opportunities and acts on then when the right moment arrives.

She walked away from her seat on the empty beach deciding that the time was right to choose a new beginning.

The Australian Magpie is a key character in 'Seeds' the monthly chronicle.

Two men separated by a generation and linked by blood, struggle to restore the natural environment. But all is not what it seems as Tristan Grey is dragged back in time to redress the wrongs of a nation.

If you are reading this blog, chances are you have an interest in protecting grasslands. You probably wouldn’t be surprised if I suggest that you and I are in the minority.

If I was to put on my ultraconservative hat, I might say to you;

“why are we spending buckets of money on saving grasslands”?

After all I might add, “money spent on protecting or restoring native flora would have a far greater benefit to the broader community if it was invested in medical research, defence or training more school teachers”.

I might conclude that “restoring a kangaroo grassland on a country roadside or a 10 ha bit of scrub on private land benefits very very few Australians”.

Civilisation is underpinned by natural processes and ecological networks

Why don't most rational people care?

For those of us who are passionate about native flora, these views are confronting and extremely frustrating, but sadly not uncommon.

Conservationists scratch their heads with dismay as we wonder why every Australian doesn’t see native flora and fauna as precious. Why don’t most rational people care deeply about the steady slide into extinction of many of our unique plant and animal species?

John Delpratt points out the many values of roadside kangaroo grassland reserves in the second of his excellent articles>. Their low fire risk, improved visibility for drivers and their extraordinary beauty. He also mentions the powerful sense of place they provide. But are these tangible reasons that would motivate a nation to protect them?

Conservationists are acutely aware of the significant environmental services that natural areas provide. The wealth and health of our whole civilisation is underpinned by natural processes and ecological networks, but to the uninformed these are invisible as is the ongoing loss and destruction

Teesdale Grassy Woodlands isn't very scary but it's a bit messy

Grasslands are messy scary placeswith hidden dangers!

Dr Kathryn Williams is an environmental psychologist who has studied the relationships between people and ecosystems. In ‘Land of Sweeping Plains’ – Managing and restoring the native grasslands of south-eastern Australia (edited by Nicholas Williams, Adrian Marshall and John Morgan), she recalls the raw emotional reaction of a colleague with no previous experience of native grasslands.

“Walking through the grassland you can immerse yourself in the novelty and pleasure of such an experience, but it’s one tinged with a visceral anxiety engendered by the possibility of snakes and lurking danger.”

Many Australians would nod their heads in appreciation of this experience. They see natural areas as messy scary places that hold hidden dangers.

Neville Oddie with enthusiasts at his Chepstowe property

Preserving grasslands is old fashioned

Williams goes on to describe studies of Australian farmers who consider native grasslands to be less attractive than a paddock of crops or grazing land of introduced grasses. They also considered grasslands to have less ecological value than much smaller areas of remnant woodlands.

Well known grassland conservationist and central Victorian farmer, Neville Oddie believes he is viewed by many people as ‘trying to hold onto something from the past that impedes progress today’. This suggests that preserving remnant vegetation is considered by some Australians as old fashioned and in some way holding us back economically.

There are certainly some deeply held attitudes in the broader community that are getting in the way of grassland conservation and protection.

How then can these old views be brought into the twenty-first century?

A small committed group of volunteers at Teesdale after installing the new interpretive sign. Click on the sign to read more about this project.

The hard work of a committed few

One of the key goals in grassland management is to help people feel connected to grasslands and appreciate their many benefits as well as their fragility.

I remember first seeing the Teesdale Grassy Woodlands over twenty five years ago when it was Gorse infested and home to the Teesdale tip. I was with a grasslands expert who became excited about its floral richness after a short walk.

This was news to me at the time and it helped me appreciate its values. It started me on a long campaign to save and restore this reserve and through my involvement I developed a strong personal connection. It is now Gorse and tip free, a popular place to walk and highly valued by the Teesdale community because of its natural beauty and uniqueness.

This sounds like the happy ending we would all want but it was achieved through the hard work of a small committed group of volunteers. The majority of the Teesdale community were too busy with life’s demands to get involved, attend a wildflower walk or an evening talk on the local birds.

Does this story sound familiar?

Changing hearts and minds

How do we connect the majority of Australians emotionally with wild places?

Is it through ‘cues to care’? Aids that reveal the quality and values of messy landscapes?For example;

high quality colour pocket field guides on wild flowers like those developed by the Leigh Catchment Group

extraordinary artworks like the amazing volcanic plains panorama Volcano Dreaming Designed and produced by Peter Haffenden and Kerrie Poliness in 2005. Click to read more>

putting up engaging interpretive signs like the clever ‘Welcome to my Backyard’ signs on the Cressy and Mt Mercer Roads near Shelford

putting up good quality fencing around reserves as a statement of their value

engaging volunteers with the promise of a fun day, meeting new people, giving them something meaningful to do and providing a tasty lunch

providing awards for being a ‘grassland champion’

running Wildflower walks and providing interesting guest speakers

providing free indigenous plants for people to plant in their own gardens

All of these innovations are gratifying for people with an interest in wild places but sadly they are frequently ‘preaching to the converted’ and have very little impact on the hearts and minds of the broader community.

(Hover your mouse over the images below to read the caption and click to enlarge)

To reach the hearts and minds of the average Australian we need cultural and social change as outlined in my recent December>and January> Blogs.

Fundamentally we need to adopt many of the values of indigenous Australians and become honorary aborigines as was suggested by Don Burke at the 2016 Landcare conference. This may sound like a radical solution but consider how their culture maintained an ecological balance across this nation for over 60,000 years. A balanced fabric of complex ecologies that has almost been unravelled by our culture and values in less than 200 years.

With respect to Aboriginal elders past, present and future I propose that we start in a small way by all choosing a personal plant and animal totem plus an ‘ugly’ (see the brilliant Wilderness Society’s campaign to ‘save Ugly’).

Select and connect with an Australian animal and plant species that can be found near your home.

Eastern Yellow Robin, Eopsaltria australis

My personal totems could be;

The Eastern Yellow Robin is very curious and has a single note song which is usually repeated three times. I chose this species in the hope that they will return to my emerging native garden after an absence of many decades. They are an important habitat indicator species because they need areas with diverse layered vegetation in an area of 5 – 10 ha.

An ancient Sweet Bursaria that’s growing in the park next door helped me feel more settled in my new home. Bursaria> are a wonderful small tree that help maintain the ecological balance of woodlands.

A conversation, an opportunity and a coincidence provided the fragile thread that pulled together an unforgettable adventure in a mountainous region of Italy called Abruzzo.

I have to admit that the prospect of flying to Rome and joining a group of seasoned hikers on daily mountain treks of 12 to 20 km had me quaking in my brand new hiking boots. I’m reasonably fit but I'm ashamed to admit that I’ve rarely walked 12 km in one day let alone 20 km in mountains above 1500 meters.

My wife Lina and I even invested in trekking poles because we thought they might help get us through. At least we would look the part and in Italy that really matters. The Italians speak of “la bella figura” which literally means ‘the beautiful figure’. In Australia we would interpret this phrase as ‘looking good’ or in our case 'looking half competent'.

Abruzzo is located about two hours drive east of Rome. It is mountainous, spectacular and dotted with small hilltop medieval villages. It is an area that most tourists don’t visit because it has had an undeserved reputation of being backward and undeveloped.

Key descriptions stood out as I did some background reading. The literature said there was a large network of parks which are protected and managed to encourage regeneration of the fauna and flora. The Gran Sasso, Majella and Abruzzo are three major National Parks that are home to a diversity of wildflowers and wildlife like the iconic Marsican Brown Bear, the Apennine Wolf and the Abruzzo Chamois.

The spectacular mountain ranges of Abruzzo occur on one of the most seismically active regions of Europe. These abrupt ranges are the result of two tectonic plates colliding and pushing up what has been described as the geological ‘backbone’ of Italy. Movement along this fault-line in 2009 did severe damage in the town of L'Aquila causing loss of life and making 60,000 of the population of 80,000 people homeless. Other towns in this part of Abruzzo were also damaged by this 6.3 magnitude earthquake.

After a 750 m climb the trek followed the mountain ridge at 1800 m. The ridgeline (part of Italy's geological backbone) represents the regonal border between Abruzzo and Molise

The mountains are made of hard wearing sedimentary rocks, ancient and economically important limestone, dolomite and the highly prized travertine. These rocks have been ground into steep, deep valleys and tall peaks by a long history of glaciation.

We thankfully managed to shake off our jet lag with four special days with family in London. On the 21st of May we flew into Leonardo da Vinci international airport to meet our guides, the amazing Jackie and Iole>,and a dozen companion trekkers. We drove east in two comfortable people movers making a stop for lunch in Tivoli and eventually arriving at the remote medieval village, Santo Stefano di Sessanio which was to be our rustic home for the next three nights.

Red and Yellow Elder flowered Orchids, Dactylorhiza sambucina.

Wonderful wildflowers

The next day dawned cloudy, drizzly and only 16 degrees, though surprisingly Rome was experiencing a heatwave. Such was the climatic variation at these higher altitudes. Though it was cold and grey, the green meadow we walked onto to start our 16 km walk was ablaze with wildflowers. Like every wildflower walk I’ve been to in Australia, nearly 30 minutes passed and we had only progressed 100 meters. I thought hopefully at that time, this is a trekking pace I can manage quite comfortably. I was sadly mistaken as the pace picked up and my companion trekkers became dots on the misty horizon.

Good fortune continued to make up for the lack of sunshine. It arrived in the form of the young and generous orchid expert Michael Waller who is writing a book on 'Britain’s Orchids'. Michael was joining the walk to photograph and broaden his appreciation of Europe’s orchids. Follow this link to see some of Michael's beautiful orchid photographs. Thanks to Michael I was able to put names to many unfamiliar plants. Though I often felt out of my depth and recalled vividly the bewilderment I felt on my first wildflower walk in the Inverleigh Nature Conservation Reserve in Victoria, Australia over thirty years before when I knew very few of the local plants.

Yet it was remarkable how familiar this grassland felt. The plants fell into a familiar pattern. The assemblage of orchids, lilies, legumes, tussock grasses and colourful wildflowers in this alpine meadow had the ambiance of a southern Australian grassland in September.

Though the abrupt snow draped mountain peaks in the background was a spectacular reminder that Abruzzo's climate and topography couldn't have been more different.

A wild herd of Abruzzo mountain ponies. Some wear a bell which rings as they graze. This adds a discordant melancholy to the isolated atmosphere of the mountain paths.

Wildflowers and grazing

Interestingly this diverse grassland has been maintained by regular grazing for millennia. Since Roman times shepherds have grazed sheep on the mountain pastures of Abruzzo. This practice reached a peak in the 1500's when an estimated 3,000,000 sheep in small flocks roamed the mountain grasslands growing fat on the green summer pick. Mutton, wool and sheep's milk products brought wealth to the mountain communities as well as the Medici dynasty in Florence.

An important part of the grazing calender was the annual practice of Transumanza. This involved herding the huge population of sheep as well as cattle from the mountains of Abruzzo to the lowlands of Puglia in the south, to avoid the severe winter cold in Abruzzo.

The demand for Abruzzo wool collapsed in the late 1800's when cheaper Australian Merino wool started flooding the textile markets. With the backbone of the economy crumbling, people left the region, emptying the towns. Abruzzo entered a dark period when the beautiful medieval towns became almost deserted, the buildings crumbling and in need of repair.

Though mutton and pecorino cheese remain important foods today, the region now supports only 450,000 sheep, a number of cattle and small herds of wild mountain ponies. These animals are strategically grazed on the grasslands of the National Parks, a strategy that is maintaining the plant diversity. For example orchid expert Michael Waller recorded over thirty orchid species during his week in Abruzzo at the end of May.

It is this pristine natural environment that is sparking a revival. Tourists who want to escape the busy tourist areas of Italy are finding history and nature in Abruzzo without the crowds. The old buildings are being restored and a new ecotourism industry is emerging.

Here is a taste of the wildflowers of Abruzzo presented as a colourful collage of flowers and landscapes.

John DelprattJohn is an Honorary Fellow with the University of Melbourne.

He was a lecturer in plant production and seed technology at the University’s Burnley campus for 25 years prior to his retirement.

His involvement with native grassland conservation focused initially on cultivation and seed production systems for grassland forbs and later on the reconstruction and management of diverse native grassland communities for both ecological and horticultural applications.

Over the past few months, Steve has introduced the native grasslands and grassy woodlands of temperate Australia; what we know of their management and why we are losing the battle to save them – a compelling story in four Blogs. I have the privilege of adding my own contribution to this discussion.

Rokewood Cemetery (mid-summer) is a beautiful and diverse Kangaroo Grass dominated flora reserve. It also retains one of the largest remnant populations of the nationally-endangered daisy Button Wrinklewort (Rutidosis leptorhynchoides). It serves as an important reference community for regional grassland restoration

Last month I wrote about the on-going, incremental loss of native grassland on our public roadsides, but also of the recent progress in restoring these communities, primarily by direct sowing.

This month, I’d like to explore the value of restoration for conserving these critically endangered communities and how a small community in south-western Victoria is approaching this issue. I will argue that local community action is an achievable method for kick-starting the replacement of large tracts of exotic, high biomass, summer-dry roadside vegetation with lower biomass native grassland communities, dominated eventually, in most instances, by summer-growing Kangaroo Grass.

A high-quality remnant on Chatsworth-Wickliffe Rd, a 3 chain (60 m) wide road reserve just west of Woorndoo.

The many benefits of roadside grassland reserves

There are numerous reasons why rural roadsides are potentially very valuable for long-term native grassland conservation, and simultaneously, why remnant and restored native grasslands are so well suited to our roadsides.

In many districts rural road verges retain stretches of remnant vegetation that can serve as local reference communities, as a source for the measured collection of local seed, and as a point of species radiation, over the longer term, into adjoining restored areas.

Unlike private property, where ownership and land-use priorities can change over time, roadsides are likely to remain in public ownership into the foreseeable future.

Roadsides provide habitat corridors and connectivity over large distances, within an otherwise fragmented landscape.

Although there is a very high ‘edge to area’ ratio on a roadside, the adjoining land on one side is a gravel or sealed road and often, on the other, a managed fire break, cropping or pasture, potentially limiting the area occupied by invasive exotic species.

Many rural roads are offset within a wide reserve (3 chains; 60 m), leaving a 40 to 50 m width available for restoration.

The more that road verges are restored to native grassland, the greater the opportunity to conserve these beautiful and complex habitats and their component species.

Properly managed, a Kangaroo Grass community provides an open, low-biomass, spring and summer-growing plant community that is significantly less fire-prone than exotic grasses such as Phalaris, with significantly lower potential fire intensity and flame height.

The open structure of managed Kangaroo Grass allows much greater visibility for drivers than the tall, dense wall created by Phalaris when fully grown.

Again, from a human perspective, a diverse Kangaroo Grass roadside is a fine sight from mid-spring until late autumn – and if burnt in autumn, it produces an emerald-green sward within a very few weeks. As such, it provides interest and a powerful sense of place for the traveller.

Detail of a reference species-rich remnant on Woorndoo-Streatham Rd, immediately adjacent to the Woorndoo restoration site.

Coming to a roadside near you?A case study in community action.

Woorndoo is a small agricultural community in south-western Victoria. Along with its surrounding districts, its road reserves and public lands (Woorndoo Common, Woorndoo Cemetery) support some of the richest remnants of critically-endangered natural temperate grasslands and grassy woodlands. However, these precious remnants are under constant threat and incremental damage from road and roadside works, and the ingress into disturbed areas by competitive exotic species.

A detail of some of the diversity established in the 2013 restoration; a combination of sown species and wind-dispersed spores and seeds.

In 2013 The Woorndoo Land Protection Group, with the support of Moyne Shire, restored a strip of approximately 250 m (1.25 ha) along the Woorndoo-Streatham Rd from its intersection with the Bolac Plains Rd. The site had a history of roadside cropping. They had available to them the expertise of local farmer and nursery operator David Franklin. David had been a member of the GGRP team (lead by Paul Gibson Roy - see Part 1) from its inception a decade earlier.

David immediately adopted, then helped refine, their innovative approach to grassland restoration. As summarised in Part 1, the technique relies on preparing a low nutrient seed bed, with a reduced soil weed bank, which is direct sown with a native grassland seed mix. The complexity of mix depends on the number of species available as seed and the objectives of the project.

Success inspires support

Largely based on the success of this initial sowing, the Woorndoo group were able to win a two-year State Government Community Action Grant in 2017. The grant is funding the expansion of the regional seed production area (SPA), detailed experiments towards expanding the range of techniques available for increasing species diversity and population size within existing and new restorations, and a further 1.25 ha direct sowing in 2019. The first round of experiments is due to be planted and sown into the existing restoration later this month. The Woorndoo Project has a strong emphasis on volunteer involvement and the communication of results through workshops, field days, social media (fb: Woorndoo Land Protection Group) and publications.

Although the initial restoration at Woorndoo was driven by local experience, the techniques are accessible to any community with land management skills, and a willingness to share and apply those skills to restoring diverse native roadside vegetation in their local area. One of the great beauties of this process is that well-restored areas quickly become a seed source for further restoration – and so on.

The view from the 2013 Woorndoo restoration into the site for the 2019 restoration. The cropped area extends for approximately 10 km north-east towards Nerrin Nerrin. Perhaps, in the future, local community organisations may find that harvesting seed and fodder from native perennial grasslands is at least as rewarding as annual cropping, with improved outcomes for the environment.

The industry needs to expand to meet the needI am under no illusion. To achieve a large and sustained increase in the area of restored diverse native grassy habitat, the industry will have to become more professional. Regional seed supplies, particularly of the many non-grass species that contribute to diversity, must be available in reliable and sufficient quantities. Contractors must be able to develop viable enterprises to encourage investment in well-trained staff and appropriate machinery for the initial sowing and on-going management. Road managers such as VicRoads and rural shires must be able to plan new sowings with confidence and at a reasonable cost. This has been achieved in other jurisdictions.

In the US roadside grassland restoration is a big industry

When Paul Gibson Roy visited seed producers and restorationists in the US for his Churchill Fellowship in 2015, he was amazed by the size and sophistication of an industry that is underwritten, in part, by Federal Government regulations mandating the use of native vegetation for some Federally-funded projects.

Read Paul’s full report and his specific recommendations for Australiahere

For now, local communities are well-placed to make a difference in their own districts. Greater diversity in restoration sites and in the individuals undertaking the work will inevitably lead to increased innovation, and demand for seed and operational resources – the beginnings of a viable market place. But let us all keep in mind that wisest of principles: “First do no harm”.

Part 1 of this blog summarised the broad requirements for successful grassland restoration, and sources for more detailed information. Within the next couple of years, the Woorndoo Project should be able to expand the suite of techniques and approaches that prove successful for a small community organisation relying heavily on volunteers.

John DelprattJohn is an Honorary Fellow with the University of Melbourne.

He was a lecturer in plant production and seed technology at the University’s Burnley campus for 25 years prior to his retirement.

His involvement with native grassland conservation focused initially on cultivation and seed production systems for grassland forbs and later on the reconstruction and management of diverse native grassland communities for both ecological and horticultural applications.

Over the past few months, Steve has introduced the native grasslands and grassy woodlands of temperate Australia; what we know of their management and why we are losing the battle to save them – a compelling story in four Blogs. I have the privilege of adding my own contribution to this discussion.

Recent mechanical damage to a section of Kangaroo Grass (Themeda triandra) roadside remnant vegetation. The reason for the damage is not known but it illustrates how quickly these communities can be degraded or destroyed, with little prospect of timely repair or restoration. Image: Liz Fenton

The critical element for any conservation activity is HOPE

Constantly, we are reminded that natural temperate grasslands and grassy woodlands are among Australia’s most endangered plant communities. We watch in disbelief and frustration as these complex and beautiful communities are incrementally degraded, reduced and obliterated by human activities such as urban expansion, pasture modification and cropping, and road and roadside operations.

High quality Kangaroo Grass on a broad roadside reserve. Even here, competing uses of the reserve, which have reduced the extent and continuity of the stand, are evident in the top, left-hand corner of the image. Image: Liz Fenton

The situation is dire but my experience over the past three decades has engendered that critical element for any conservation activity – HOPE. Hope, that by our efforts we truly are investing in a better future. Hope, because we now have the knowledge and tools to rapidly and massively expand the area of diverse native grassland.

And while restoration can never entirely substitute for an intact, species-rich natural temperate grassland, such areas are now so rare on road reserves that the construction of reasonable facsimiles has become the only viable means of securing and expanding this beautiful and functionally important landscape.

Restoring diverse native temperate grassland communities from scratch

In the last two decades, research and field applications have established principles and practices for establishing, from scratch, diverse grassland communities comprising species from the natural temperate grasslands of south-eastern Australia.

In most cases, this can be achieved by a single direct-sowing of a seed mix of grasses and forbs (wildflowers) onto a prepared seed bed. Details of the development of these methods have been published in various journal papers by Paul Gibson-Roy (with others), and Paul and I contributed joint chapters to ‘Land of sweeping plains – managing and restoring the native grasslands of south-eastern Australia’. (If your library does not have a copy, ask that they order one. Disclaimer: we authors do not receive royalties.)

The process can be used to restore both small and extensive areas of native grassland to replace exotic vegetation, to expand existing stands of native grassland or grassy woodland and to replace areas of exotic vegetation within an existing native grassland or grassy woodland.

The basic requirements and procedures for the successful establishment of native grassland by direct sowing are simple, but they must be understood and applied rigorously – as with any human action relying on complex biological processes, disaster is always an option.

A suitable site should be accessible to machinery, relatively flat, more-or-less free of surface or shallow sub-surface rock and support no significant native vegetation – a fair description of many of our exotic-dominated rural roadsides.

The direct sowing mix should comprise good quality seed, free of competitive weed species and in sufficient quantities and diversity to meet the objectives of the project.

The sowing surface and root zone should contain nutrient levels that are low by normal agricultural standards, particularly nitrogen and phosphorus.

While most of these native species grow well with elevated soil nutrients, they lose their competitive advantage over nutrient-loving exotics, which will be in the soil seed and bud bank or adjacent vegetation.

The techniques proposed here depend on simultaneously depleting soil nutrients and the exotic soil weed bank. This is usually achieved by removing (stripping) the soil surface. This seems drastic but it has proved very effective and there is usually a productive alternative use for the nutrient-rich spoil.

Important note:If we were able to separate elevated soil nutrients from the soil weed bank within a reasonable time-frame, soil stripping would not be necessary. However, using currently-available technologies, it takes years to sufficiently deplete nutrients and the soil weed bank.

A three-year-old restored diverse native grassland at Woorndoo, south-western Victoria in spring, 2017. The restoration was undertaken by the local community and will feature as a case study in next month’s blog. Image: John Delpratt

Planning, tweaking and patience

The level of technology needed to prepare the seed bed and prepare and sow the seed mix will depend on the scale of the project. Machinery has been developed for large sowings.

It is critical that any grassland restoration project has the capacity, and intent, to manage the newly-established vegetation to control excess biomass, native or exotic.

Similarly, there must be the intent and capacity to influence the vegetation trajectory. This may mean increasing native diversity, if required, or managing species, plant and/or animal, which are threatening to disrupt the restored community. This may be as straightforward as appropriately-timed burning and/or slashing, usually in autumn; a skilled but routine operation in many regions.

There are practical protocols and techniques for each of these steps but if suitable seed is not immediately available for all species there may be a lead time of several months to two years to complete the site preparation and sowing. Depending on the time of year seed is sown and the post-sowing weather conditions, a proper assessment of the success of the sowing may take a further six to eighteen months.

While I would advocate including Kangaroo Grass in most roadside sowings, it can be relatively slow growing and may take a few years to establish an obvious presence, and much longer to become the dominant grass. In the meantime, Wallaby Grass, Poa and other native grass species do a fine job. If the sowing includes a diverse mix of wildflowers, the reward can be a very fine and colourful display within a couple of years.

A high-quality restoration near Wickliffe with sown native diversity and many colonising natives. This site had been scalped pre-seeding and is under a regular CFA biomass reduction burn program. Image from The Grassy Groundcover Gazette newsletter 2017

I am a strong believer in public land conservation – and rural roadsides offer thousands of kilometres of connectivity and corridors for the plants and small creatures that once, and should still, be defining lifeforms of our wider semi-natural landscapes.

Public land, especially roadsides, will always be vulnerable to occasional damage but the more high-quality, connected habitat we have, the less significant will be the impact of each damaging event – particularly when we have the tools and confidence to repair the damage.

John continues his roadside reserve story in May when he explores a community-based approach to roadside restoration and presents a case study in successful and on-going action from south-western Victoria.

Historically kangaroo grazing was important for the health of grasslands

Grazing is a natural process in the life of a grassland or grassy woodland. Before British settlement mobs of kangaroos would randomly move about their home range and graze on the most succulent grasses and herbs.

This chance grazing pattern created patchworks of long and short grass providing different habitats for wildlife.

Where the grass was longer in a eucalypt woodland, the nocturnal Rufous Bettong would prosper. In the shorter grassed areas, many of the ground feeding parrot species could feed. Chance grazing was an important part of the grassland ecology and it provided habitats that supported hundreds of native insects and animals and the ecological services they provided.

Overgrazing by 'static' large mobs of kangaroos causes a loss of species diversity

Today there are more kangaroos and fewer grasslands

In the twenty-first century kangaroos are still important grazers in our parks and reserves, but two things have changed. There are now more kangaroos and less grasslands for them to graze.

These grasslands are also in isolated pockets, forcing kangaroos to spill over onto private land. This allows the mobs to grow well beyond the capacity of the native grassland to support them, putting more pressure on the grassland plants often with disastrous results.

This artificial ‘static’ grazing pattern is a radical change from the natural pattern of grazing mobs constantly on the move. A moving mob grazes more generally and doesn’t have time to target the tasty plants. Static grazing allows animals to pick and choose resulting in tasty plants being constantly overgrazed and potentially vanishing.

Grazing also helps to ‘open up’ the grasslands. For example when a dominant native grass like Kangaroo Grass, Themeda triandra, is not grazed or burnt for more than ten years, it can become too crowded, choking-out neighbouring herbs and orchids. The Kangaroo Grass eventually declines because of a build-up of dead grass at its base.

In contrast, if Kangaroo Grass is grazed or burnt regularly, there are inter-tussock spaces or gaps for other plants to occupy. The Kangaroo Grass is also healthier, each plant potentially living for more than 100 years. The overall result is a stable and diverse grassland plant and animal community.

Grazing Kangaroo Grass. Photo courtesy of Arthur Rylah Institute

Grazing can control introduced grasses

Aggressive introduced grasses that displace native species in grasslands are difficult to control. Hand weeding is a useful method for small areas but it is labour intensive and creates soil disturbance that encourages more weeds to grow.

Spraying with herbicides is expensive, has associated health risks and there are only a few selective chemicals like flupropanate that target problem weeds like Serrated Tussock or Chilean Needle-grass that may be growing in a pristine grassland.

Grazing is little used to maintain the health and diversity of grasslands but it has the potential to be a very useful tool. Associate Professor Ian Lunt commented on grazing in The Conversation in 2012;

‘In Tasmania, a number of threatened native plant species survive in grazed areas; if stock are removed the plants are smothered by thick grasses and decline’.

In Chinamans Lagoon, an 8ha reserve within the township of Teesdale, Victoria, the removal of grazing animals had a profound effect. Two horses and a few sheep had grazed in the reserve for decades suppressing Veldt grasses enough for 55 species of indigenous plants to flourish.

In 2002 the grazing animals were removed and this enabled two species of South African Veldt grass, Perrenial, EhrhartaCalycina; and Annual, E. longiflora to spread, eventually swamping the native grassland species within ten years. In 2017 only 8 tree & shrub species and 5 grass species could be found.

To read more about identifying and controlling veldt grasses click here;

A flock of Merinos grazing in Chinamans Lagoon.

Merinos to the rescue

In 2016 the wet spring produced exceptional veldt grass growth in Chinamans Lagoon which was a significant fire risk to the Teesdale community. Mowing or brush cutting the long grass wasn’t practical because of the native trees and the ground debris.

Research suggested that heavy grazing is the Achilles-heal of Veldt grasses so in September 80 Merino sheep (10 sheep/ha) were introduced over four weeks. This trial was hoping to stress the invading veldt grasses and also open up more inter-tussock spaces for the indigenous grasses to recolonise.

The Merinos did an excellent job of reducing the fire risk and preferred eating the exotic veldt grasses and avoided the native spear grasses and wallaby grasses for the first two weeks. The long term plan is to graze the lagoon annually in early spring to weaken the hold of the veldt grasses to allow the native flora to recover.

Pulse grazing rates will be much higher than the recommended stocking rates for native grasslands of 1-2 sheep/ha

Pulse grazing to restore grasslands

The ecology of a grassland benefits most from a large mob of kangaroos grazing randomly and then moving on. Pulse grazing with a mob of sheep mimics this pattern of grazing and potentially can be used as a grassland restoration tool.

Sheep left to graze for long periods create an even heavily grazed grassy landscape. This may look attractive, but for wildlife it spells loss of habitat and for the grassland it spells loss of biodiversity.

Pulse grazing produces an uneven landscape. To achieve this effect a large number of stock are introduced for a very short time. Also called crash/patch/mob grazing, the short grazing time avoids ‘tasty’ plants being targeted and results in more general grazing. In essence the mob is slowly walked through the grassland nibbling as they walk like the kangaroo mobs of old.

The number of sheep needed to mimic a mob of kangaroos is likely to be very high. The flock sizes will be much higher than recommended stocking rates. Normally a native grassland would support 1 – 2 sheep/ha if the sheep are left to graze in a paddock for months. Pulse grazing stocking rates over 1 – 2 days, are likely to be 10 – 20 times higher than the recommended rates. For example a 20 ha reserve may require a flock of 200 - 400 sheep.

Monitoring grasslands for change can be a lot simpler than counting plant species in a 1mx1m quadrat each year. Photo points are easy and very useful. Photo Victorian National Parks Association

Dividing the grassland into small areas with portable electric fencing would enable flocks to be moved daily, producing a desirable patchwork landscape. This would be quite time consuming, but the grazing process would only need to be repeated every 1 – 5 years to keep the grassland healthy.

A less time consuming alternative could be found by experimenting with smaller flocks in larger patches over 1 – 2 weeks. To find the right formula some monitoring of the grassland would be necessary. The sheep would be moved when prominent, easy to observe indicator plants were starting to be heavily grazed.

Whatever strategy of pulse grazing is adopted, deciding on some management goals like increased species diversity and reduced dominance of certain native grasses is important. Set up photopoints at marked fence posts and in patches containing key species, marked with a hardwood peg, for a valuable aid to recognise change.

The plan is to come back each year to the same locations at a similar time and point the camera in the same direction to get the same photo. Comparing the photos over time is a wonderful reminder of where you started and how much the landscape has changed.

Below is a set of photopoints that I took in the Teesdale Grassy Woodlands Reserve to monitor Gorse, Ulex europaeus control. Hover over the images for an explanation.

Ecologist Allan Savory, who is reversing desertification in 15,000,000ha on five continents, promotes ‘Holistic Management and Planned Grazing’ which is very similar to pulse grazing.

Savory advocates using huge flocks of sheep or huge herds of cattle. With his grazing system he is turning bare deserts into lush grasslands, but the critical ingredient is that he mimics the constant movement of the wild herds of Wildebeest grazing on the savannahs of Africa.

See his TED presentation below, already viewed 4.5 million people, to be inspired with his simple solution to climate change;

Pulse grazing with large flocks of Merinos mimics the historic grazing pattern of mobs of kangaroos. This should benefit grassland ecologies if it is done when the soil is firm, to avoid compaction caused by hard hooves. Flowering and seed set times will be less important for pulse grazing as many plants will be undamaged in this short grazing cycle.

For longer periods of grazing of 1 – 2+ weeks, monitoring grazing will be an important trigger for sheep removal. Flowering and seed set times in spring are times when the sheep should be removed to allow plants to complete their reproductive cycle.

To read more on monitoring grazing in native grasslands for conservationclick here

In Part 5 of the Grassland series guest blogger and respected grassland expert John Delpratt will consider the future of Kangaroo Grasslands in roadside reserves. How they are faring and how we can best look after or restore them To be posted in April